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SOCIALISM 



"The Creed of Despair 



99 





Debate 
HUGO vs. CAREY 




Class 

Book. 

Copyright^ 



H/s fr 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 



SOCIALISM 

"THE CREED OF DESPAIR" 
^oint Debate 



FANEUIL HALL, MARCH 22, 1909 

BETWEEN 

GEORGE B. HUGO 

President Employers' Association 0} Massachusetts 
AFFIRMATIVE . 



JAMES % F. CAREY 

State Secretary Socialist Party of Massachusetts 

NEGATIVE 



A* 






Copyright, 1909, by Geo. B. Hugo 

All rights reserved 



PUBLISHED MAY, I909 



First Impression 



JUL 26 T909 



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fci. A 2474 60 
' u t 26 I809 



WHY? 

In an address delivered at the annual meeting of 
the Employers' Association of Massachusetts, I char- 
acterized Socialism as "The Creed of Despair " and 
"A Menace to Modern Civilization/' which, being 
reported in the daily press, was quickly noted by 
the Socialist Party Club of Boston. A challenge 
was immediately issued to publicly debate the ques- 
tion whether Socialism was "The Creed of Despair 
and "A Menace to Modern Civilization/' my oppo- 
nent to be Mr. James F. Carey. This challenge I 
at once accepted, stipulating, however, that I be 
informed of the particular brand of Socialism we 
were to discuss; also that tickets be printed for each 
side and the hall divided. The Debs platform was 
given me as their special creed, and Faneuil Hall 
was selected for the debate, Socialists occupying one 
side and Anti-Socialists the other. 

Immediately succeeding the debate, which occa- 
sioned much interest among followers of both sides, 
I received many inquiries in regard to publishing 
it. The Socialist Party Club submitted copy for 
publication, which, being incorrect and slackly 
handled, I refused to countenance, notifying them 
of my reasons and of the existence of my copyright. 
(They, nevertheless, proceeded to publish it, ignor- 



ing the law in question, quite in accordance with 
established Socialistic tenets.) In addition to 
the many errors, however, I objected strongly 
to the use of the union label under my name, 
and to be inflicted upon my friends, many of whom 
are averse, as I am, to the badge, label, or tag of 
any organization or collective group organized for 
purely selfish ends. I thus, in justice to myself 
and friends, felt forced to publish the debate, but 
I shall feel amply repaid for the time expended in 
its preparation, should the perusal of this little book 
impress upon even one mind the fallacies and im- 
possibilities of Socialism. 

Geo. B. Hugo. 
Boston, May 25, 1909. 



"Why don't you vote the Socialist 
ticket? . . . Because down deep in 
your hearts there is the lingering hope 
that some day you will have some of 
these w r age slaves working for YOU! 
. . . But, when the time comes that 
all hope is gone of having wage 
slaves under your domination, then 
you will become Socialists!" 



IN OTHER WORDS, WHEN MAN 
ACKNOWLEDGES TO HIMSELF 
THAT HE IS A FAILURE, WHEN 
HOPE IS DEAD, WHEN DESPAIR 
SETS IN, THEN SOCIALISM 
HOLDS OUT ITS HANDS AND 
CRIES, "ACCEPT OUR CREED, 
THE CREED OF DESPAIR."— 
George B. Hugo. 



SUBJECT OF DEBATE: 

-SOCIALISM: THE CREED OF 
DESPAIR." 

The affirmative presented by Mr. George B. Hugo, 
the negative by Mr. James F. Carey, Mr. George 
W. Coleman, publisher of the Christian Endeavor 
World, acting as Chairman. 



OPENING REMARKS BY CHAIRMAN 
COLEMAN. 

This is certainly a very interesting occasion, as 
is evidenced by the large crowd that has gathered, 
and so early in the evening. Inasmuch as we have 
a battle royal on this evening, which is to last two 
hours, the best thing that the Chairman can do is 
not to take up any time in making a speech. 

You will want to know something about the con- 
ditions of the debate: the affirmative are to have 
thirty minutes, the negative thirty minutes; the 
affirmative in rebuttal twenty minutes, the negative 
in rebuttal thirty minutes; and the affirmative in 
closing ten minutes. The management have been 
very careful to arrange this thing in as fair a way 



as possible. As I understand it, the house is divided 
against itself. I hope the roof won't fall. [Laugh- 
ter.] As near as I can make it out, the goats are 
on one side, and the sheep on the other [laughter]; 
and on which side are the goats and on which side 
the sheep, I will leave you to determine. [Ap- 
plause.] 

They were also careful in choosing the presiding 
officer to choose somebody who was neither one 
thing nor the other. They chose a man who is not 
a Socialist and a man who is not an Anti-Socialist. 
So I suppose those on either side can call him "half 
baked." But his retort would be that it is better 
to be that than raw on one side or burnt black on 
the other, and especially as there is always a chance 
for a man who is " half-baked " to get well roasted 
before the evening is through. [Laughter and ap- 
plause.] 

The topic for discussion is ' ' Socialism : The Creed 
of Despair." The gentleman who is to discuss it 
on the affirmative side is a man who has his convic- 
tions, and is not afraid to speak them. There are, 
undoubtedly, thousands and tens of thousands w^ho 
agree with him, but not many of them who have 
the nerve to set forth their opinions as strongly and 
vigorously as he does. 

I take pleasure in presenting to you Mr. George 
B. Hugo, President of the Massachusetts Employ- 
ers' Association, who will have thirty minutes on 
the affirmative side of this question. [Applause.] 



9 



But, before I introduce him, I want to remind you 
that the speakers are not the only ones this evening 
to exercise restraint. They know well enough that 
to lose their tempers would be to give the other side 
an advantage. The only thing we have to do is 
to see that they have fair play, and I am quite sure 
that that will require a good deal of restraint both 
on the part of the goats and the sheep. [Laughter 
and applause.] I take pleasure in presenting to 
you Mr. George B. Hugo. [Applause.] 



AFFIRMATIVE OPENING. 
GEORGE B. HUGO. 

This is real social, anyhow. I am amused at 
Chairman Coleman stating that he is half-baked; in 
other words, a neutral. Napoleon always said 
that neutrals ought to be shot. So, if there is any 
shooting to be done, we will have to shoot the neutral. 
[Laughter and applause.] 

I am an individualist. I acknowledge no master 
on earth except the law ! I am an individualist who 
favors the utmost social and economic freedom con- 
sistent with the freedom of every other individual. 
[Applause.] In other words, my freedom, my lib- 
erty, my rights, cease the moment I encroach upon 
the freedom, liberty, or rights of another individual. 
[Applause.] This is the fundamental theory of 
freedom, religious, political, and economic, — the true 
conception of freedom and ideal individualism. In 
defence of this ideal I shall attempt to puncture 
the tires of the menacing red devil of Socialism before 
individualism is crushed to death. [Applause.] 

Socialism from beginning to end can be summed 
up in one sentence : Socialism is the puny attempt of 
visionary mortals to change nature's unalterable law. 
Socialism is an emotional debauch, the morphine 
stimulant of a decaying civilization [groans from 



11 



Socialist side], the opium exhilaration, intoxication, 
coma, and death of a nation adopting it. [Ap- 
plause from Anti-Socialists.] 

The economic struggle confronting us is not be- 
tween Capital and Labor, but between individualism 
and collectivism, between the man who has and the 
man who has not, between intelligence and ignorance, 
between mental power and hand power. It is the 
struggle for supremacy, between the mental giant 
representing intelligence and capacity — the ideal in 
civilization, all that is noble and worth while, the 
soul of life — and the physical giant representing ig- 
norance, incapacity, and brute force, seeking only 
the happiness of the beast, a satiated belly, soulless 
materialism. Properly defined, individualism means 
progressive civilization, order, and liberty. Collec- 
tivism means retrogression, chaos, compulsion, and, at 
its best, state servitude. [Applause.] As religion 
and humanity constitute the soul of true civiliza- 
tion, so individual ownership of property is the ma- 
terial foundation of civilization . When collectivism, 
or Socialism, with its unbalanced intellectuals, its 
mushy sentimentalists, its vicious, its discontented, 
its failures in life, attacks the private property of 
the individual, it becomes a menace to modern 
civilization and cannot be tolerated. [Applause.] 

What is property, or capital, and how is it created? 
Capital is the result of labor performed by an individ- 
ual in excess of his living requirements. To illus- 
trate: If eight hours a day is necessary to provide 



12 



food ; clothing, and shelter for an individual, or for 
an individual and those depending upon him, and 
the individual worked but eight hours a day, there 
would be no surplus or capital remaining. Should 
he, how r ever, work for ten or more hours, what- 
ever remained over and above his requirements of 
that day would be so much surplus wealth or capi- 
tal. Thus we find that all capital is primarily 
created by excess labor. There must be no mis- 
understanding about the term " labor. 7 ' It is prob- 
ably safe to say that 90 per cent, of those who 
accept the theory of Socialism understand "labor" 
to mean only physical results, the work of the body. 
They place no value on intellectual labor, which is 
the great source of wealth to them. In other words, 
they must be able to see, feel, hear, taste, or smell 
results, or they have no value. This is the common 
conception of the term " labor " by the mass of physi- 
cal workers, and is generally accepted by the un- 
thinking. 

Thought, the greatest force in the world for the 
uplift of mankind, not being a tangible substance, 
is considered of no value in the socialistic scheme. 
Creative power, ability, and directing capacity, the 
result of thought and absolutely essential for progress 
in the industrial field, the brains and head of the 
body politic, are to be chopped off, and the tangled 
mass of legs, arms, and trunks are to automatically 
perform the world's work. By some unknown 
mystical process, nature's laws will be changed. 



13 



Greed, avarice, and all human ills are to disappear. 
Frail humanity will shake off its defects, mankind 
will become God-like, and perfect equality will be the 
order of the universe. What a beautiful picture! 
But what a pipe-dream! [Applause and laughter.] 
Emotionalists look upon this picture with frenzied 
enthusiasm, suffering humanity grasps at this straw 
of quackery for relief, while sane men look on with 
compassionate sympathy and dread of the inevi- 
table consequences. The cumulative experience and 
wisdom of the ages are to be superseded by a fan- 
tastic scheme of topsy-turvy-dom called Socialism, — 
certainly a cheerful outlook for the individual! 
[Applause.] 

The cry of mediocrity, — " Labor creates all. Labor 
is entitled to all it produces. Labor is entitled to 
all the land. Labor is entitled to hold all the ma- 
chinery/' — these are the stock claims made by 
Socialists. Give labor land, machinery, and all the 
raw material in the world, including factories and 
plants of every description, without a master mind 
to direct its operation, it would be as helpless as a 
child in swaddling-clothes, as dangerous as a train 
of cars and engine on the track with steam up, the 
throttle in the hands of incompetence. God only 
could save that train from wTeftkage! [Applause.] 
It must be conceded, then, that intelligent direction is 
of more importance to industry than physical labor. 

With the facts fundamentally established that 
capital is the result of excess labor, both physical 



14 



and intellectual, and further established that both 
are necessary to create capital, the question of dis- 
tribution arises. How shall it be distributed? The 
method of distribution raises two questions: — 

(1) Shall the capital produced by labor — 
both physical and intellectual — be distributed 
in proportion to the amount each individual 
creates ? 

Should Socialism answer No, then what becomes 
of its claim that labor is entitled to all it produces? 
If, however, it answers Yes, there can be no disagree- 
ment about existing conditions. Now for the second 
question : — 

(2) Shall the capital produced by both classes 
be cast into a common pool for equal distribu- 
tion among all workers, regardless of the amount 
each individual has created? 

This question is the meat in the cocoanut, the rock 
upon which Socialist and individualist split. Should 
Socialism answer Yes, its demand for equality of 
opportunity is untenable by the fact that common 
justice demands thfat the equal right or opportunity 
to take from the common pool carries with it the 
obligation of an equal contribution to the common 
pool. If, on the other hand, the obligation of equal 
contribution is to be ignored, then individuals con- 



15 



tributing the larger shares of capital to the pool 
will be at a decided disadvantage in the social- 
istic scheme of equality and equal opportunity. 
[Applause.] J. Phelps Stokes, acknowledged author- 
ity on Socialism, is quoted as saying, "We don't ask 
people to join the Socialist Party, unless they under- 
stand Socialism is just and fair." I should like to 
ask if the individuals contributing the larger share 
of capital to the common pool would be treated 
"just and fair" under this arrangement? 

"But," say the more advanced of the fifty-seven 
varieties of Socialism [laughter], "we concede that 
intelligent direction is essential, but the difficulty is 
that these directors receive an unjust proportion of 
the capital produced. In other words, hand labor 
does not receive a just proportion of what it pro- 
duces, which recalls to my mind the story of the 
walking delegate of the Hack Drivers' Union during 
a strike in San Francisco. In conversation with the 
prosecuting attorney, after the conviction of a peace- 
ful (?) picket caught in the act of using one of 
those peaceful instruments of persuasion, commonly 
called a "black-jack" [laughter], he said to the dis- 
trict attorney, "You know very well that labor does 
not get a just proportion of w T hat it produces." The 
attorney replied, "Oh, I don't know about that." 
"You know they don't." "Now let us see," replied 
the attorney. "You are a hack driver. What do you 
produce?" The hack driver scratched his head a 
moment, and then replied: "What do I produce? 



16 



Motion." [Laughter from Anti-Socialist side. Mr. 
Hugo, addressing Socialists, u That does not seem to 
strike you funny, does it?" Prolonged laughter and 
applause.] 

But let us analyze the statement that hand labor 
does not get a just proportion of what it produces 
by a concrete illustration. Supposing that a hun- 
dred hatters (very apropos just now), working inde- 
pendently, can each make one hat a day, paying $2 
for material and selling at $4, leaving $2 for their 
pay. Then an individual comes along, invents ma- 
chinery, puts up a factory, and induces the hundred 
hatters to go into the factory and work according to 
his direction. The hundred hatters turn out two 
hundred hats a day instead of one hundred, with a 
value of $800 instead of $400, in less time and under 
better conditions than when working separately. 
Who created and who is entitled to the difference in 
value ? The hundred hatters or the individual who 
by his inventive genius and directing ability created 
the difference in value? But let us go a step farther, 
and assume that he paid the hatters twenty-five 
cents a day more than they could make separately, 
and reduced the price of hats to consumers twenty- 
five cents also. Could either the hatters or the pur- 
chasers of hats claim that they had been injured by 
the change? Will not even the most rabid Socialist 
concede that the individual is entitled to the extra 
value he created? But, as this illustration involves 
machinery and a factory, some question might be 



17 



raised in the Socialist mind about ownership of the 
machinery. 

I will get a little closer to earth by giving another 
illustration. Supposing two men own apple orchards 
side by side. ( hie by care and scientific application 
of the art of raising apples produces a better grade 
of apple than his neighbor's, so that he receives five 
dollars a barrel for his apples, the other receiving 
only three dollars for apples of an inferior grade. 
The difference is a difference of product, one superior 
to the other. Is the individual who raises the better 
apples entitled to the difference in value? Should 
he pay his farm hands more for doing the same work 
that his neighbor's men are doing? in other words, 
divide the fruit of his own genius with the men who 
chanced to be working for him instead of for his 
neighbor? Did he not produce the difference in 
value, and is he not entitled to all he produces ac- 
cording to the Socialist theory, that labor is entitled 
to all it produces? Could any one claim that the 
greater share in this transaction is not a just pro- 
portion to which the individual is entitled? I think 
not. [Applause.] 

John Spargo says, "When you say 'Equality of 
Opportunity/ you express the whole aim of modern 
Socialism." I would like to ask if both these men 
who owned the orchards side by side did not have 
an equal opportunity to raise the same quality of 
apples? The opportunity was the same; but was it 
not the difference between intelligence and ignorance, 



ambition and laziness, will to do and unwillingness 
to do? Nature's inequality of the human being. 
Does any one believe that nature's law would be 
changed by the adoption of the socialistic scheme of 
government? Does this not prove that Socialism is 
but a visionary ideal, without a practical working 
basis? As a purely economic proposition or, as 
some put it, u a bread-and-butter proposition/' 
its realization of equality is a practical impos- 
sibility. 

I shall now quote from the Socialist Party Plat- 
form handed to me by my Socialist brother, Mr. 
Carey, as his particular brand of Socialism, so that 
I should not discuss one of the other fifty-six kinds 
only to find that my arguments did not apply to 
the right one : — 

."Human life depends upon food, clothing, 
and shelter. Only with these assured are free- 
dom, culture, and higher human development 
possible. To produce food, clothing, and shel- 
ter, land and machinery are needed. Land 
alone does not satisfy human needs. Human 
labor creates machinery, and applies it to the 
land for the production of raw materials and 
food. Whoever has control of land and ma- 
chinery controls human labor, and with it 
human life and liberty." [Laughter and great 
applause.] 



19 



Then in the last paragraph we find: — 

"To unite all workers of the nation and their 
allies, and sympathizers of all other classes to 
this end, is the mission of the Socialist Party. 
In this battle for freedom the Socialist Party 
does not strive to substitute working-class rule 
for capitalist-class rule, but by working-class 
victory to free all humanity from class rule, 
and to realize the International Brotherhood 
of Man." [Prolonged applause from Socialist 
side of house.] 

Now that sounds well, especially the words " battle 
for freedom/' "to free all humanity from class rule," 
"the Brotherhood of Man." 

We as individualists accept this plank, and, para- 
doxical as it may seem to you, I am on this platform 
to-night to uphold this sacred principle of freedom. 
[Applause from Anti-Socialists, laughter from Social- 
ists.] So long as there is a spark of life within me, 
I shall be on the firing line of the battle for free- 
dom, the battle to free all humanity from class rule, 
and to practise the Brotherhood of Man. [Applause 
and laughter. Speaker addressing Socialists, "You 
don't seem to believe that."] 

But how does Socialism live up to this plank? 
By catering to organized labor, the tail to its 
kite. With few exceptions every Socialist is a 
unionist, and every unionist is a Socialist [voice from 



20 



rear of hall, "Not so"], though he does not always 
know it. [Laughter and applause.] I never could 
quite reconcile the two, but Socialism indorses or- 
ganized labor, accepts its label, that odious mark 
of servility, coercion, and tyranny printed on the 
very tickets which brought you in here to-night. 
[ (Hisses.) Speaker with much feeling, " Hiss ! Hiss ! 
That's the language of the snake, the danger signal 
of the viper!" (Applause.) When quiet reigns 
again, continues] And, thus indorsing organized 
labor, Socialism stands sponsor for its inhuman 
acts. Organized labor, one of whose spokesmen, 
the notorious Shea, stood upon this platform and 
said, "The time has come when a man must be a 
member of a labor organization or be in the hos- 
pital." He went to Chicago, and made a record of 
killing eighteen men and injuring four hundred and 
fifty others. I want to ask you, Is this freedom? 
Is this the Brotherhood of Man? [Applause.] Or- 
ganized labor, which denies boy or man the oppor- 
tunity to learn a trade. Is this freedom? Is this 
the doctrine of the Brotherhood of Man? [Applause.] 
Organized labor that kills, slugs, and terrorizes indi- 
viduals w T ho do not do its bidding ? Is this freedom ? 
Is this the practice of the Brotherhood of Man? 

How do you as Socialists reconcile yourselves 
to these inhuman acts? Is the battle for freedom 
to be won through organized labor troops of com- 
pulsion, led by the Socialist generals of discontent, 
who mistake slavery for freedom? Is humanity to 



21 



be treed from class rule by the rule of despotic medi- 
ocrity? Is humanity to sell itself into slavery .for 
food, clothing, and shelter? This the black slave 
always had. [Applause.] This is the brotherhood 
of the beast, — the cow, horse, and dog, — not the 
Brotherhood of Man. Civilized men will never sell 
their freedom to any collective group, be they capital- 
ists, unionists, or Socialists, for food, clothing, and 
shelter. [Applause.] Individual freedom means more 
than a satiated belly. It will not give up its indi- 
vidualized entity, and become an automatic instru- 
ment under the domination and control of any col- 
lective group. [Applause.] Socialism is a menace 
to modern civilization. Why? 

(1) Because it is a step backward, — retro- 
gression. 

(2) It would destroy man's power of indi- 
vidual choice. 

(3) It would relieve man from the personal 
responsibility and moral obligation which he 
owes his fellow-man. 

(4) It would reduce man to the status of an 
automaton. 

(5) It would destroy Free Will, the founda- 
tion of moral accountability to God. [Applause.] 

(6) Because it is an economic fallacy and a 
spiritual delusion. 

There may be those who are willing to shift upon 
the State the responsibility they owe to themselves 



22 



and their fellow-men. But let me say there can be 
no escape. The debt we owe to life is a debt that 
each individual must pay himself. [Applause.] 

Mr. Coleman, Chairman. — Your Chairman, hav- 
ing been duly shot, has come to life again. [Laugh- 
ter.] The speaker did not quite use all his time, 
and that leaves me a moment in which to urge upon 
us all fairness in giving the speakers their full rights. 
[Applause.] When we are in a fight to the finish, 
as we are to-night, we must learn not only to give 
blows, but to receive them. I now present to you 
Mr. James F. Carey. [Prolonged applause.] He 
cannot wait for me to put on any frills. 



JAMES F. CAREY OPENING THE NEGATIVE. 

I really trust that those who have a leaning toward 
any one of the fifty-seven varieties will be quiet 
while I am talking, because it takes up some of my 
time, and the Socialists can really make a better 
argument than noise. [Cries of " Louder.' 7 ] Don't 
be afraid: you'll hear me. 

It is extremely difficult to argue in defence of a 
position that has actually not been assailed. Al- 
though Mr. Hugo may believe that the annihilating 
process has well begun, as a matter of fact he has 
not assailed Socialism. [Voice in the front row, " Will 
Mr. Carey answer a question?"] In order to under- 
stand Socialism, in order to understand what argu- 
ments and objections may be made against it, 
mere generalization and phrases are not effective. 
To indulge in numerous phrases and general 
statements is by no means a method of arriving 
at the truth or falsity of a position. I say the gentle- 
man who preceded me, whatever else he did, he cer- 
tainly only indulged in generalization and in phrase- 
ology, that Socialism is this or that or something 
else. Let me give you a little information in regard 
to a few principles, which every one of the " fifty- 
seven varieties" are agreed upon. That's the re- 
markable thing [applause] that you cannot under- 



24: 



stand. [Laughter.] Some of you are yet in the 
primary class, judging by your applause of the 
statements which he made, and I will, therefore, 
come down to your level and talk to you. 

Here is the situation: Man, in order to live, must 
have food, clothing, and shelter. Even a capitalist 
has to have that. If you don't believe it, try it for 
a while. [Laughter.] Try to get along without 
them. Man, finding himself upon the earth, with 
those needs that were absolutely primary and neces- 
sary, must have looked about for means to satisfy 
those needs. There was the earth, containing within 
itself the things necessary to satisfy human needs. 
How could man extract those things from the earth 
(meaning by "the earth" the material universe 
within his reach) ? By the application of his labor. 
He had to dig roots and pluck wild fruits from the 
trees. He did so, and existed. Slowly, by the very 
pressure of his economic wants and his desires to be 
freed from a constant struggle for food, he developed 
methods by which he could produce more than he 
could before. Instead of relying upon wild fruits and 
berries, he learned to turn the earth with a crooked 
stick and plant a few T seeds and reap a scanty harvest. 
Instead of depending upon an occasional animal that 
he might kill, he learned to domesticate animals for 
his use. And that process has gone on. Man, facing 
the ever-present need of satisfying his material wants, 
and finding that they cannot be satisfied except by 
the application of labor to mother earth, has gone on 



25 



from the beginning of the first man, until to-day, 
improving the means by which his material needs are 
satisfied^ and in proportion as he has developed these 
means, lie has made it possible to free himself from 
the continual pursuit of merely material wants, and 
to free himself, in part at least, in order that he may 
engage in the higher and nobler effort of art, litera- 
ture, and those things which distinguish man from 
brute. [Applause.] Now 7 the point is, at this mo- 
ment, that at one time or another, by a slow creeping 
process, by force or fraud, by the exercise of brutal 
power on the part of strong men or strong tribes, men 
stepped between their brothers and the earth, and 
declared that the opportunities to labor belonged to 
them as their private property, and by slow process 
seized upon the implements of labor, until to-day 
the men and women of the working class, the men 
and women who perform the useful service of the 
world, in order to secure the means of satisfying 
their material wants are compelled to secure the con- 
sent of the owners of the tools of their labor and the 
opportunities to labor. [Applause.] What is the 
status of the working class under that arrangement? 
They cannot live unless they have access to the tools 
and the opportunities to labor. These tools and the 
opportunities belong not to them, but to a class 
other than they. Mr. Hugo desires freedom. Let 
us see if the working class, under this arrangement, 
are free. If I own the means by which you live, I 
own you, because by withholding those means I can 



26 



doom you to starvation and death. [Applause.] 
The capitalist class to-day own the means by which 
the working class live, and by withholding them they 
can and are, to-day, dooming thousands of workers 
to starvation and premature death. [Applause.] 

I stood on Kneeland Street, where the State Em- 
ployment Bureau is, this morning, and it was packed 
to the edge of the sidewalk with men willing to work 
for almost nothing more than a mere existence. 
Why? Because the means of their labor, the oppor- 
tunity to labor, was in the hands of a class other than 
themselves, and no man can be free unless he owns 
the means of his own existence. [Applause.] 

Let us again view the situation of the working 
class. The working class confront the capitalist 
class, the owners of the opportunties of labor, and, 
in order to gain access to them, they must submit 
to certain conditions. What are the conditions? 
They must agree to sell their labor power to the 
owners of the tools of labor. For what? For the 
value they create? No. For wages, and the wages 
are not determined by the amount they produce. 
If two men went to any shop or factory to-day or 
to-morrow, both equally skilled, both competent to 
do the same work, and the owners want but one man, 
what is the ordinary process in capitalist circles? 
Two men, one job: one wants fifteen dollars a week, 
the other wants twenty-five. Who is hired? [From 
the rear of the hall, "The fifteen-dollar man." Ap- 
plause.] 



27 



The wages paid to the working class are determined 
not by what they produce, but by the struggle be- 
tween the workers for the jobs. And the man against 
whom the greatest economic pressure is placed is the 
one who will work the cheapest, and that becomes, 
generally speaking, the standard of wages in that 
particular trade. 

Now, in passing, let me say a word concerning the 
trade-unions. Unfortunately, Mr. Hugo is incor- 
rect when he says the leaders of the trade unions 
are Socialists. If they say they are, then they would 
lie; but they deny it. But, if they are not, they 
ought to be. [Applause.] A dear friend (?) of Mr. 
Hugo, Mr. Samuel Gompers of the American Fed- 
eration of Labor, says worse things about us than he 
has yet, and upon this very platform at a national 
convention of the American Federation of Labor, 
at which I was a delegate, President Gompers anni- 
hilated us, and now we are going to have it done to 
us again. [Laughter and applause.] 

Now mark you! Men do not belong to trade- 
unions because they like to, because they like to 
put in their nights. It is an economic necessity. 
I assure you that in those trades where there is no 
power of resistance against the ever-present down- 
ward tendency the wages have gone down to the 
lowest possible level. [Applause.] There is no need 
of arguing about that. Go to the cotton-mill towns. 
Why. you could not organize them with a barrel 
of glue. [Laughter.] And what do you find the 



28 



wages? Four, five, six dollars a week, less than 
six dollars a week on the average the yesiT round. 
The trade-union movement is the instinctive pro- 
test against the economic pressure upon wages. 
That all trade-union men are not angels is self- 
evident. How can you expect them to be when they 
have no examples above them? [Laughter and ap- 
plause.] The trade-union men, so he has affirmed, 
in their strikes, have killed somebody, have wounded 
somebody. I don't know of any case. He has 
affirmed that they have done so, and he has said 
that it was something like eighteen, I think. Let 
me say to him that he and his class by their failure 
to use safety appliances in mines, shops, and fac- 
tories killed and wounded last year in this country 
two million workingmen. [Applause.] And let me 
say, further, that his class by poisoning the food 
and poisoning the drink and adulterating every- 
thing that we use have sent down to death thou- 
sands of the race, and have sent them down in the 
name of the only God they have, whose name is 
Profit. [Prolonged applause.] 

What do you think of an industrial system based 
upon individual greed for profit? The individual 
capitalist has no choice in the matter. He must 
buy labor as cheap as his competitors or go out of 
business. If there are one hundred men in business 
and ninety-nine of them are angels, — if you can 
imagine an angel in business [laughter], — and the 
other one was an ordinary business man, the ordi- 






nary business man would set the standard of the 
business ethics in that trade, and all the others would 
be compelled to go down to his level in order to 
succeed commercially. 

Take the daily papers, — lies. The advertisements 
of the stores, — lies. Take the label- on goods, — lies. 
:i capitalist -ays that the other fellow's goods 
aren't any good, and they are not any good. Each 
says: "Mine are good, buy of me. I don't put in 
salicylic acid: I put in arsenic/' [Laughter and 
applause.] 

Xow, then, let me give you something of the con- 
structive part of Socialism. I have showed you, 
I think, briefly, something of our analysis of eco- 
nomic conditions. What do we propose? What 
do we say further? These tools of labor, born of 
the very need of humanity to satisfy its needs, have 
grown, developed, from the simple crooked stick to 
the gigantic gang plough, from the rude wooden- wheel 
ox-cart that lumbered painfully short distances to 
the mail express. The cumulative genius of the race 
has produced wonderfully complex machines. The 
change in the character of the tools of industry has 
been simply this : In the early days the tools of 
labor were individual tools. A man could own and 
operate them alone. The simple shoemaker's tools; 
the stage-coach; the sailing vessel. A man alone 
could operate and therefore could properly own 
them. To-day the tools of industry have grown 
into gigantic social tools that require the collec- 



30 



five and co-operative labor of the working class 
for their production, their preservation, and for 
their operation. 

The change in industry, so far as tools of labor are 
concerned, has been a change from individual tools 
to social tools. No commodity to-day is the prod- 
uct of disassociated labor. Everything we use is 
the product of the collective labor of society. The 
Socialists point out the tremendous revolution in 
the character of the tools of industry, pointing out 
that those tools are socially necessary, pointing out 
the danger of permitting a few men to own the means 
whereby the many live, and ask for the comple- 
tion of the revolution by bringing about the social 
ownership of the social tools. [Applause.] There is 
our position. When we appeal to the working class, 
whom do we mean? We mean the producing class. 
It is not the Socialist who would say to the workers 
that they have no brains. Sometimes one might 
be led to believe so, because they insist upon vot- 
ing the same way their masters vote. [Laughter 
and applause.] Mr. Hugo would give j t ou to under- 
stand that there is physical labor, and that it is 
simply hands and legs and muscles, that's you; 
and then there is mental labor, that's him. [Laugh- 
ter and applause.] It is absolutely incorrect for 
any man to distinguish between mental and physi- 
cal labor, because all productive labor is a combi- 
nation of both. Do you think a man can make a 
pair of shoes without any brains? Do you think 



31 



a man can make a cigar or build a locomotive or 
run a locomotive without brains? No. But I will 
tell you one thing a man can do without brains. 
If he gets shares of stock enough in some productive 
enterprise, and some of his guardians put in an effi- 
cient slave driver as boss, he will get rich. [Laugh- 
ter and applause.] There is no distinction in the 
Socialist philosophy. We do not distinguish, we 
simply say that any man or woman that performs 
useful service to society belongs to the working- 
class, whether he paints a house or paints a picture; 
whether he digs a sewer to prevent disease or w r rites 
a prescription to cure disease [laughter], he belongs 
to the working class. And the collective labor of 
that class produce all the wealth of the world. And 
under this system they receive in return w r ages or 
salary, or what amounts to wages or salary, and the 
surplus above that passes into the hands of the capi- 
talist class. If brains determined the amount of 
wealth that a man has, compare Mr. Rockefeller's 
brains with Mr. Hugo's. [Laughter and applause.] 
And I say that I don't agree that that is a correct 
standard. I don't agree that Mr. Rockefeller has 
a sixty million dollar a year brain, and Mr. Hugo per- 
haps a five or ten thousand dollar one. [Applause.] 
And, because I believe that, I have a right to kick 
about the arrangement, and he should be kicking 
also. [Laughter and applause.] The statement that 
labor produces all value, he agrees with. It would 
be certainly very difficult for him to prove other- 



32 



wise. The question is, Does labor receive all value ? 
If he affirms that it does, I deny it. I deny that 
the producers of the wealth of the world to-day 
receive the wealth of the world. You never saw 
a rich workingman [laughter], — never in your life. 
The average wage is four hundred and fifty dollars 
a year, about nine dollars a week. How long would 
it take you to get rich on that? How can you get 
rich? Simple enough. If you can manage to get 
five hundred or a thousand dollars together, and 
then get possession of some of the opportunities 
to labor, j^ou can levy tribute upon the productive 
energies of the working class. Suppose that I and 
Mr. Hugo and a few others seized an oasis in a desert 
by which the trail ran that men travelled, and we 
put up a sign, "This oasis is ours." And then you 
come along staggering from thirst. We would say, 
"Well, we will hire you for so much water a day 
for attending to this thing." It is our brain that 
does it, you know. And then we hire a few others 
as soldiers to protect us in owning it. Then we hire 
a few others as lawyers to interpret the law in our 
favor. Then, when any weary and thirsty men come 
that way, we say the price has gone up, owing to 
the spots on the sun. [Laughter and applause.] 
Then we leave the oasis for a while, and we organize 
a stock company. We water the stock. We go 
down to Wall Street and State Street and float the 
stock. We put a manager in charge. Then we sail 
the world around, and the income flows in. By 



83 



reason of our brain? Perhaps. Bui not by reason 

of any productive labor that we performed. 

Can you see thai this is in essence the position of 
the capitalist class generally? Do you imagine 
that Mr. Rockefeller made the oil, built the pipe 
lines, or the refineries? Do you imagine he did? 
Not at all. He gets sixty million dollars a year. 
Where does it come from ? From the hands and the 
brains of the producers of the wealth. What does 
he give in return for it? He swore before a judge, — 
and he is an honorable man, — he swore that for years 
he had done nothing in the oil business, that he didn't 
even know where the office was, and 3 r et he has an 
income of sixty million dollars a year, — more than 
all the working men and women in this whole State 
receive. Is that the reward for productive energy? 
Whatever the merits of the case, and I conclude by 
reminding you, the fact is, to-day an economic 
condition confronts us where a part of the human 
race own the means of labor. They are called the 
capitalist class. Individually, they may be good 
fellows. I have absolutely nothing against the cap- 
italists as men. I am against the system, that is 
all. [Applause.] Now, then, those who are not in 
ownership we call the working class ; those who have 
labor power, that they must needs sell it to the 
owners of the means of labor. The price paid to 
the workers is wages. The wages represent a part 
of what they produce, and whatever is produced 
above the amount of the wages is absorbed by the 



o4 



capitalist class, and out of that difference they 
build colossal fortunes/ they riot in luxury, to the 
disgrace of the human race. Out of that difference 
they threaten and menace the morality and virtue 
of the human race. And out of the development 
of the tools of industry comes an ever-decreasing 
need of labor. Men are displaced, they are rendered 
useless, and out of that come tramps, yeggmen, and 
the lower class. There is the dregs on the bottom, 
and the top is the scum, — the idle rich and the idle 
poor. They both rot: they fester in their idleness. 
They, and they only, are a menace to society, and 
they are being perpetuated by the existence of the 
private ownership of the tools of industry and the 
maintenance of the wage system. [Applause.] 



GEORGE B. HUGO OPENING THE AFFIRMA- 
TIVE REBUTTAL. 

My distinguished opponent has the African Dodger 
beaten to a frazzle. [Laughter.] If you will notice, 
he did not touch any one of the subjects that I 
brought up. [Applause.] He talked about noise. 
He gave you words. I don't know which of the two 
you prefer, words or noise. He didn't advance a 
single argument. He told you of conditions that 
every child knows, but he did not tell you how to 
cure them. I notice another thing, — that he has 
his crowd well trained. [Laughter and applause.] 
He must have rehearsals frequently. Next time I 
come up here I will have my crowd trained. [Ap- 
plause.] He said I had made general statements. 
I didn't suppose I had. I gave concrete illustra- 
tions. He evidently forgot them. But he is not 
going to escape this time. [Applause.] 

In order to live, he sJays, labor must get the consent 
of the owners of tools. My experience has been that 
we have to get labor's consent. Most employers 
who have anything to do with a labor organiza- 
tion have to walk around and see the shop steward, 
to see whether the men will work or not. Though 
they are not Socialists, they ought to be, Mr. Carey 
claims . [Applause . ] 



36 



Then he spoke of the State Employment Bureau, 
where he noted hundreds of men seeking employ- 
ment. I wonder it never occurred to him that, if 
"labor creates all/ 7 as Socialists say, why does it 
not create work for itself? This proves the fallacy 
of the claim, and shows that labor needs and expects 
some one to provide and direct its work. Could 
Brooklyn Bridge have been built by the workmen 
who cut the granite blocks and made the cables? 
Could the} 7 have constructed this masterpiece of 
engineering skill without the genius w T ho conceived 
and the master mind who directed the work of the 
laborers? [Applause.] Take all the material in 
this building, and put it in a heap, put your laborers 
there, see what they will create. [Applause.] 

He cited another horrible example, — "Two men, 
one job. One will work for fifteen dollars a week, 
the other wants twenty-five. Which will they hire ?" 
A man in the rear answered, "The fifteen-dollar 
man." Probably true. But I would like to see 
one of these Socialists go into a hat store, and pick 
up two hats of equal grade, one priced three dollars, 
the other four dollars. Which would he buy? 
[Great applause.] 

Mr. Carey "had no idea that labor organizations 
had ever killed any one." And he lives in Boston, 
where only a year ago last summer we had a team- 
sters 7 strike. We did a little killing on our own 
account then. But Mr. Carey never heard of it. 
He speaks of the " mistakes " of organized labor 



through its leaders or individual members. I want 
to say that there is not a record in the history of 

organized labor where a man has ever been expelled 
for killing! But we have record after record where 
they deify and make heroes of the men who did the 
killing. I cannot reconcile the two, as I said before. 
I cannot understand how a Socialist, one of these 
Brotherhood-of-Men fellows, can go out and kill 
people, crack them on the head with brass knuckles, 
and so forth, and still claim to be a Socialist. 

Mr. Carey said that I knew nothing of Socialism. 
Then I have not studied out his right brand. I 
thought I had him cornered when I read his platform. 
Well, I want to go further and state that He doesn't 
know anything about Socialism. [Laughter and 
applause.] Why, I can put up a better argument 
than he has. All he talks about is, "We want the 
tools." He did not get at the problem. I ex- 
pected that he would ask me some questions, but 
he didn't do it. [Laughter.] I have prepared a 
few for myself that I supposed he was going to ask 
me. These questions were put by Mr. Kirkpatrick 
to Mr. Corey in Xew York. Corey did not answer 
them, but I shall. 

"Do you believe/' Mr. Kirkpatrick said, "that 
all workers who are willing to work should have 
work? If you do, how are you going to provide 
work for all the willing workers of maximum 
efficiency and productivity on the individual 



38 



system of wages ?" (Kirkpat rick's is probably 
another brand of Socialism.) [Laughter.] 

Now the answer to that is, By the removal of all 
artificial barriers placed on industry through govern- 
mental interference with the private business of the 
individual, and by enforcing the laws against all 
organizations of both capital and labor when they 
interfere with the rights of individuals, be they busi- 
ness men or workmen. In other words, Let the nat- 
ural law of supply and demand take its course, and 
give each individual an equal opportunity to work out 
his own salvation. In a word, perfect economic free- 
dom. 

Another questions "Why should the children 
of the present capitalist generation fall heir to 
the modern mills, factories, shops, and rail- 
roads?" 

I might answer by asking another, Why should any 
other person's children fall heir to them? But my 
answer is, Because the family is the natural unit 
which makes up a civilized state. The individual, 
in protecting his family, by the same act protects 
the state. The interests of the individual and his 
family and the state are mutual, based on the fun- 
damental truth that property is the foundation of a 
civilized state. By protecting the property of the 
individual, the state protects itself. The private 



39 



ownership of property by individuals is the cohesive 
power which holds the state together. 
And now, Mr. Carey, I have prepared twenty 

questions that I want to ask you. I don't ex- 
pect that you are going to remember them, so 

I have put them on cards, numbered from one to 
twenty, and I don't propose that you shall dodge 
them. 

(1) How will the Co-operative Commonwealth 
determine the income of each worker? 

(2) Will each worker, skilled or unskilled, re- 
ceive the same income? 

(3) If all receive the same rate of compensa- 
tion, will not such a system forever rob the 
superior workers of a part of their superior 
ability? 

(4) And will not this conflict with the oft- 
repeated assertion of Socialists that the workers 
will receive the full product of their toil? 

(5) If each worker should receive the full 
product of his toil, who will support the vast 
horde of non-productive workers? 

(6) And, if each worker received the full 
product of his toil, some will have large incomes, 
others small; and will not this be economic in- 
equality? 

(7) As the capabilities of the workers will 
differ under Socialism, just as they now differ 
in our socialistic public school system, how and 



40 



in what way will it be possible to determine the 
true value of each worker's toil? 

(8) How much more should a college profes- 
sor receive than a railway brakeman? 

(9) If we are to reduce the working time to 
four hours per day under Socialism, as Socialists 
assert , will it not require the services of 1,500,000 
more railway workers to perform the same ser- 
vice that 1,300,000 now perform? And will not 
this cost the nation $800,000,000 to $1,000,000,- 
000 annually more than the present labor cost 
for our transportation? 

(10) Would not coal and everything else cost 
double if we reduced the working time to four 
hours a day? 

(11) Then how about the non-productive 
workers, — i.e., the strictly government officials? 
Will it not require the service of a million boards 
of arbitration and several million book-keepers 
to keep track of the hours, income, skill, etc., of 
each worker, in order to determine whether the 
Socialist nation is robbing somebody or paying 
too much to somebody? And who but the 
workers, the real toilers, will pay all these 
bills? 

(12) If we are now able to produce only $650 
per w r orker per year by working eight to ten 
hours per da} r , how will we produce $2,000 per 
worker per year by working four hours per clay? 
How r are you Socialists going to get possession 



41 



of all the land, railroads, business blocks, church 
and school properties, machinery, etc.? Will 

the Socialists confiscate or purchase all capital 
now used in production and exchange? 

(13) Will the man who invents a machine 
worth millions to society be paid a life income 
(a new form of royalty) or how will he be re- 
warded ? 

(14) Is it not true that of the 1,500 million 
people on earth no two are alike? One man is 
a success, the other a failure. One is industri- 
ous, the other a spendthrift. One sober, the 
other a drunkard. Will the industrious, sober, 
and saving man be willing to divide with and 
help to support the lazy man, the drunkard, 
and the spendthrift? 

(15) What wall you Socialists do with the 
farming lands and the five million owners of 
these lands? Will you divide the land into 
five, ten, or fifty acre tracts and parcel it out 
to each farmer, and wall each farmer be com- 
pelled to account to the State for what he raises? 
Will the intelligent farmer receive the same in- 
come as the ignorant farmer? Will an account 
be kept of what each farmer produces and the 
quality? If so, will it not require an army of 
expert book-keepers to see that each farmer gets 
the full reward of his labor? Or will the So- 
cialist State farm the lands in large tracts, with 
Socialist farm bosses and Socialist farm hands? 



42 



And which will 3 7 ou be, Mr. Carey, a boss or a 
farm hand? [Laughter and applause.] 

(16) As farmers now work with the best ma- 
chinery and produce an average of $700 per 
capita per year, will it not require the services 
of twice as many farmers to produce the same 
amount of farm wealth if we reduce the working 
time one-half? Or will not food cost double 
what it now costs? 

(17) Will the single man be compelled to 
labor as many hours as a married man with six 
children, or how will you arrange this ? 

(18) If the single man had less work, that is 
a a soft snap" compared with the family man, 
w r ould not most men desire to remain single? 
And would not this policy destroy the family, 
the best institution known to the human race? 

(19) Will the great inventor, the great writer, 
and the great organizer be rewarded for their 
superior service to society, and who will deter- 
mine what and how much such reward should 
be? If highly rewarded, will you not soon pro- 
duce the same economic inequality that now 
exists? Or, if all are to be placed on the same 
equality, — and that is just what Socialism will 
do, — will it not destroy all ambition, remove all 
incentive? Will not the race degenerate? 

(20) Is not Socialism, after all, a fantastic 
dream, utterly impossible and impracticable? 
And can any sane man suppose that the great 



43 



mass of the sane men will ever vote for such a 
system? [Applause.] 

Now, Mr. Carey, I am willing to allow you the 
remainder of my time in order that you may 
answer these questions. [Applause.] 

Mr. Coleman, Chairman. — Mr. Carey now has 
thirty minutes in rebuttal. 



"Do you, as Socialists, for one moment be- 
lieve that the unjust taking or confiscating of 
property by the simple act of the stroke of the 
pen will be accepted peaceably by those who 
own the property?" — George B. Hugo. 

"It is not in keeping with the traditions of 
this hall [Faneuil Hall] nor with a person who 
would call himself an American, to talk very 
loudly about confiscation. . . . The government 
confiscated the slaves from the Southern slave- 
holders." — James F. Carey. 

"This speaker failed to point out that the 
emancipation of the black slave — just as it was 
— involved our nation in Civil War at a cost of 
blood and treasure unequalled in modern times/* 
George B. Hugo. 



JAMES F. CAREY OPENING THE NEGATIVE 
REBUTTAL. 

It strikes me that the Chairman is in error when 
he says "thirty minutes for rebuttal.'' I have noth- 
ing to rebut. Does the gentleman think he is de- 
bating with me or with Mr. Kirkpatrick? Does he 
think that to ask a lot of questions as to what may 
be done to-morrow is a means of argument? It 
may be. Suppose I should say, I have four hundred 
and forty-seven questions to ask you, Mr. Hugo, as, 
for instance: What will the capitalist class do to- 
morrow? What will be the price of coal two weeks 
from to-morrow? What will be the ad valorem or 
specific tax on birds' nests in the new tariff schedule? 
The gentleman, and some of you, quite likely, mis- 
understand. Supposing that you were to have 
stopped George Washington when he assumed charge 
of the Continental forces. You say, "Now here, 
George, I have got twenty questions to ask you, 
more or less. What do you want?" "Well," 
George would say, "I will tell you, we want to have 
the government owned by the people instead of by 
a king." Very well. " There are fifty-seven va- 
rieties" of your kind. I want to ask you twenty 
questions. [Laughter.] How will you run Ward 8 
in Boston? [Laughter and applause.] How will 



46 



you elect a sheriff? Will a senator of Massachusetts 
get as much as a member of the House? And, if 
not, why not? Now what would George say? I 
think George was a pretty reasonable man. George 
would have said that the people will meet these 
conditions as they arise, after we establish the col- 
lective ownership of the government. [Applause.] 
Perhaps Mr. Hugo may not consider that an answer. 
I know some persons who have not thought seriously 
of this matter, — I mean it without prejudice, — who 
have studied Socialism only to see if they can find 
a weak spot in it, might say so, but they don't grasp 
the idea: they don't grasp the philosophy of it. 
It would have been impossible for any man in the 
Continental Army to give you any answer to such 
questions. They affirmed in politics w^hat we are 
affirming in industry. They said that the machinery 
of the government should be the property of the 
people; and we say that the machinery of industry 
should be the property of the people also. [Ap- 
plause.] We stand for a republic in industry. A 
republic in industry is necessary for the achievement 
of the highest degree of individual liberty. 

Now will we confiscate? Again I say that, when 
the people determine to establish the collective 
ownership of the means of production and distri- 
bution, they will determine at that time the terms. 
And, if he still insists that we are going to confis- 
cate, and gets you all frightened about it, let us dis- 
cuss for a moment the question of private property,. 



47 



and ascertain what is the true title to property. If 
a man possesses something that he did not produce, 
or that the producer did not give him, or that he 
did not produce the equivalent of, how did he get 

it You go down to the police station, and ask 

for a night's lodging, and you have a diamond ring. 
The captain or sergeant in charge will say, "Did 
you produce that ?" "No." " Was it given to 
you " k, Xo.'' "Did you produce its equivalent?" 
"No." Xext morning you are up before the judge 
for stealing. The true title to property must be 
based on one of those three things, — that you 
produced it, produced its equivalent, or that the 
person who produced it gave it to you. The first 
right to property is that you produced it. Capi- 
talism denies the first necessary principle of private 
property, because it denies to the worker the right 
to the full value that he creates. The capitalist's- 
private property is built up out of the accumulation 
of the surplus value that they have exploited from 
the working class. [Applause.] Shall we confis- 
cate that? Let us see. 

It is not in keeping with the traditions of this hall 
nor with a person who would call himself an Ameri- 
can to talk very loudly about confiscation, for the 
three brightest periods in the history of the United 
States are three periods of confiscation. First, the 
Pilgrims and the others came here and confiscated 
the land from the Indians, and ruined them in addi- 
tion. Second, the Colonists confiscated the govern- 



48 



ment from the king, and gave him a licking in 
addition. [Applause.] Third, the government con- 
fiscated the slaves from the Southern slaveholders. 
[Applause.] The Southern slaveholders had just as 
legal a right and just as moral a right to the owner- 
ship of the slaves as the capitalist class have to own 
the means by which the slave lives. [Applause.] 
King George had as moral a right to the government 
of this country as Baer has to the coal mines or J. 
Pierpont Morgan to the Boston Elevated Railroad. 
It is not for the capitalists' defenders to talk about 
confiscation, for the whole history of the capitalist 
class since they first assailed feudalism has been a 
period of confiscation of all forms of property al- 
ready accumulated, and then the confiscation of 
the property produced by the working class. Now 
what shall we do? Shall we confiscate? For my 
part, I say, ''No." But I am not telling you what 
you may do when you become a Socialist. Do you 
know that the four or five hundred thousand Social- 
ists in this country to-day are not the ones w r ho are 
going to settle it. If we said we would do this or 
that or something else, that would not have any 
legal binding effect to-morrow. The people who 
determine to establish the collective ownership of 
the tools of industry will accomplish it in the best 
way consistent with the occasion. You know that 
Lincoln made an offer to the Southern slaveholders 
to pay them for the slaves, and it would have been 
done, and the slaves would have been free; but the 



19 



slaveholders refused, and so Lincoln, assisted by a 

few others, took them away from them, and gave 
them a licking. Are you going to denounce Lincoln? 
Are you going to denounce the men who took the gov- 
ernment away from King George? Then why not 
wipe out all memories of those things? They were 
revolutionists. They were opposed to existing author- 
ity. They denied the right of any man to own the 
thing that was necessary for the public good. It is 
just as necessary that the people own the means by 
which they provide their bread as that they own the 
means by which they elect a councilman. Once you 
get that in your mind, you will begin to see more 
plainly. [Laughter.] Now, then, I would be pleased 
to answer any question that is within possibility; 
but, as nearly all those questions have to do with 
what the people may do, I cannot possibly answer. 
I would be dealing in L^topia, and Socialism is far, 
far from being a LTtopia. [Applause.] And, fur- 
ther, Socialism is not of u fifty-seven " varieties. If 
the gentleman will read the platform of the Ger- 
man Socialists, of the French Socialists, the Italian, 
the Irish Socialists, of the English, the Japanese 
Socialists, of the South African, of the Cuban, and 
Porto Rican Socialists, of all the Socialists of the 
world, numbering all together fifty million men and 
women, he will find in them all the demand for the 
abolition of class ownership of the means of social 
production and the right to the ownership of those 
means by the collectivity. [Applause.] 



50 



How shall wealth be distributed? How shall the 
proceeds of labor be distributed under Socialism? 
We can only say, first, that any criticism against the 
possibility of unjust distribution under Socialism 
must guard itself against the necessity of proving 
that it is justly distributed now. I have no doubt 
(and I say this without meaning any personal appli- 
cation of it, and I trust Mr. Hugo will not under- 
stand it to in any way apply) that a robber objects 
to any interference with what property he had, and 
most strenuously objects. He don't want his pri- 
vate property taken from him. Society takes it 
from him, and sends him to jail in addition. But 
the question of the right of an individual to a thing 
is to-day denied by society. Society denies abso- 
lutely the right of man to his property. Take the 
amendment that is pending to the State Constitu- 
tion to establish State prohibition. It would wipe 
out with one sweep all the property of the liquor 
dealers in the State of Massachusetts. [Applause.] 
Now you see that, under the capitalist system, the 
capitalists have used the State, and do use it, to 
absolutely annihilate private property. Take in the 
matter of foodstuffs. The other day I saw where 
they threw into the river or some place, destroyed 
at least fifty thousand bottles of absolutely pure ( ?) 
catsup, made out of flour and aniline dye. [Laugh- 
ter.] So that, if a man is to defend the right of 
private property, the absolute right to private prop- 
erty, he must first of all keep his skirts clean, and 



51 



not defend a system that denies the right of private 
property. [Applause.] The system that exists 

to-day is a denial of the right of private property 
and the affirmation of the right of class ownership 
of property. Suppose you save your money to 
build a little house. You work for ten or twelve 
dollars a week, and you build a little house for your- 
self and family. You certainly have earned that, and 
it is yours as clear as any man can own anything. 
Have you an absolute right to that? No. To- 
morrow morning the government, which Mr. Hugo 
defends, comes down and says, "We are going to 
run a street through your house." You have to 
go. Your right to that property is conditioned upon 
the right of the State to take possession of it for any 
public purpose. You have no right to object. Sup- 
pose you don't pay your taxes for a year or two. 
Up goes the red flag of the auctioneer, and you have 
no private property, and there you are. We would 
establish a system of private property, for the So- 
cialists are not opposed, as some imagine, to the 
possession of private property. The small business 
man finds some of his business gone by the combi- 
nation of larger firms in the same business. When 
they moved the Park Square Station, or, rather, 
moved the tracks to Atlantic Avenue, the private 
property of the individual who owned property on 
Park Square went down in value, and w T as trans- 
ferred over on to Dewey Square. One class of 
owners lost, and the others won. What guarantee 



52 



to the right of private property have you got now? 
The working class have no guarantee of private 
property. The fundamental right of private prop- 
erty is based on labor, and the working class are 
denied, from the start of the race, the exercise of 
that fundamental right, — the right to the value 
they produce, without which no man has a moral 
or natural (if there be such a thing) right to 
property. We must give up more of our energy 
than we get in return in the form of wealth. We 
must give to a capitalist a part of what we pro- 
duce. The existence of the capitalist class itself 
is a denial of the right of private property and the 
affirmation of the right of class ownership of prop- 
erty. And let me distinguish further. When we 
say we believe in the right of private property, we 
say that to get away from the old notion that the 
Socialists believe, as Mr. Hugo suggested, in putting 
in all you want and taking out all you could, or some- 
thing like that. Well, that is Theodore Roosevelt's 
definition of Socialism. Mr. Roosevelt may know 
a whole lot about some things, but he has not yet 
learned it all. [Laughter.] Whatever they may say, 
these gentlemen who are illy-informed, we distin- 
guish between kinds of property. Now here is a 
thing which is socially necessary, and here is a thing 
that is individual in its character, — an individual 
thing. We don't want to be collective owners of 
your shoes or of your hat or your tooth-brush; but 
we do want to be collective owners of the tooth- 



53 



brush factory, in order that all may have a tooth- 
brush. [Laughter.] 

Now, then, we ask for the social ownership of the 
implements that are socially required in industry 
and the right of the workers to the opportunities 
to work, which is to-day denied. Thousands and 
thousands of men and women this country over 
are denied the right to the opportunity to labor, — 
are denied the right to produce the things that they 
suffer and starve and die in need of. There is only 
one condition upon w r hich the capitalist class conduct 
industry, and that is that out of the energy of the 
workers there must be a surplus given to the owners, 
and, if that surplus is not forthcoming, then the doors 
close, even if the nation perishes. [Applause.] We 
would own the tools of industry socially necessary 
as social property. We would give to the sons and 
daughters of the race the right to the opportunity 
to work and the right to the full social values that 
they produce. Who will get it? Shall this fellow 
get more than that fellow? And, if not, why not? 
This alone I can say, that the distribution of the 
wealth produced will be in the hands of the produc- 
ers, and not in the hands of the parasites, as now. 
[Applause.] To-day the distribution of the prod- 
ucts of labor is not in the hands of the producers. 
Two or three men get together in an office, and they 
say, "Well, we will cut down the steel workers — 
12.3,000 of them — 10 per cent." Do they consult 
the steel workers? No. Two or three men get 



54 



together and say: "We will cut down the cotton 
operatives. They are getting nothing now, but we 
will cut 10 per cent, from that." [Laughter and 
applause.] Do they consult the operatives? No. 
Two men get together and say: "Winter is coming 
on. We will raise the price of coal a dollar a ton." 
Do they consult any one? No. To-day the distri- 
bution of wealth is in the hands of the parasites. 
We would place the distribution of the wealth 
produced in the hands of those that produce it. 
[Applause.] And I am sure that Mr. Hugo and I 
will get a "squarer deal" than we are actually 
getting now. [Applause.] 

Now he complained that I did not tell him how 
we are going to do it. Well, I will tell you how we 
are going to do it. Side by side with the industrial 
development that transferred the individual imple- 
ments of yesterday into the giant social instruments 
and took out of the small isolated shop the dis- 
associated laborer and introduced him to the com- 
plex system of to-day, — made of the independent 
producer no longer an independent producer, but 
a cog in a great machine, — that development from 
individual labor to collective associated labor has 
gone on side by side with the development in gov- 
ernment, until to-day the machinery in this govern- 
ment and in a growing number of countries is an 
instrument in the hands of society and not of kings. 
These two lines of development, the one creating 
the industrial change, the other putting into the 



55 



hands of an increasing number of the members of 
iety the power of the ballot, will bring slowly, 
but inevitably to the conscience of those who suffer, 
by reason of the private ownership of th< 

means of industry, the power they hold, and tl 
will go to the ballot box, and at the ballot box in 
their unvanquishable numbers they will secure 
s —ion of the government and then exercise a 
privilege and power which the capitalist class them- 
selves invented, the "right of eminent domain." 
[Applause.] Mark you, sir, the right of eminent 
domain was injected into the power of government 
by the capitalist class. — by the bourgeois of France 
first. They added to government the right of em- 
inent domain. The right is continually being en- 
larged upon by the capitalist class in their own de- 
fence. The working class, realizing their political 
power, will secure possession of the government and 
will play out the hand that the capitalist class began, 
and they will take this power and use it to transfer 
from the capitalist class to society the means of 
production and distribution, in accordance with the 
right of the government. [Applause.] Xo govern- 
ment could exist over night without the right of 
eminent domain. Xot only is the property of every 
citizen at the mercy of the government, but the life 
of every citizen is at its command. 

They can dress you up in a soldier's uniform and 
send you where they please, to shoot and be shot. 
The right of eminent domain in the hands of the 



56 



working class and those who ally themselves with 
them will be the means for the transference from the 
capitalistic class of the means of production and 
distribution to the members of society. That is how 
it will be done. That is the way we propose to do 
it. And, when it is done, then the conflict between 
the classes which exists to-day will disappear. That 
conflict which Mr. Hugo deplores, and the w T hole 
credit for which he gives to the trade-union move- 
ment, is not the fault of the workingmen, but it is 
inherent in the system, — the class ownership of the 
tools of industry. The interest of the worker being 
to get as much in return for his labor as possible, and 
the interest of the capitalist being to get as much 
out of labor as possible, create a conflict which can- 
not be remedied except by the abolition of the cause 
of the conflict. [Applause.] And the cause of that 
conflict lies in the class ownership of the tools of 
industry. Socialism will lay the foundation for 
the brotherhood of man by abolishing classes in 
society and establishing the right of social ownership 
of the means of industry and the right of the pro- 
ducers to the full social values they create. [Ap- 
plause.] 



GEORGE B. HUGO CLOSING THE AFFIRMA- 
TIVE. 

I have always been told that when you put up a 
practical proposition to a Socialist, you can't find 
him! I knew he would not answer those questions 
[Laughter and applause] because they were un- 
answerable. He says to us: "0h ; come along. 
Let's jump overboard, and, when we strike the water, 
we will discuss the question of swimming." [Laugh- 
ter.] 

Well, I don't want to lose sight of our subject, 
"The Creed of Despair." I made the assertion that 
Socialism was the creed of despair, and I will give 
you its history, how and why I came to that con- 
clusion. While in New York some time ago, I 
walked clown Broadway in the evening. When I 
reached 39th Street, I was attracted by a Socialist 
speaking on the street corner. I stopped, became 
interested, and listened for two hours, profoundly 
impressed with the fervor, intensity, and sincerity 
of this speaker, and two others who followed him. 
My mind was open. I w r anted to know and analyze 
their statements; in other words, to get at the 
root of their theory, if it had any root. 

The first two speakers pointed out the many in- 
equalities of modern life, dw^elt upon the unequal 



58 



distribution of wealth, showed the misery, poverty, 
and crime in the world, holding the capitalistic 
system which recognized individual ownership of 
property responsible for it all. In a word, civilization 
was a failure! Closing their harangues with appeals 
to the surrounding crowd (just as Mr. Carey did) to 
vote for the Socialist candidate for office. They 
saw effects, and diagnosed the cause to be the capi- 
talistic system. It remained for the third speaker 
to tell just how they w T ere going to rid themselves 
of capitalism and bring about the era of the Brother- 
hood of Man. I quote from memory, but I was so 
astounded by the remarks that they remained in- 
delibly impressed upon my mind. He said: "You 
men walking down Broadway believe that you are 
free men, a clever lot of men, but you are not. You 
are nothing but a lot of wage slaves!" [Applause 
from Socialist side of house.] "Look about you. 
See the automobiles whizzing by while YOU walk!" 
"See the magnificent buildings with which we are 
surrounded, while most of you live in hovels!" 
"Who created all this wealth? You! You created 
it, and all you need to do is to take it." 

I had waited two hours to learn the method of 
procedure, and now felt rewarded for the time I had 
spent. "The way to do it," he continued, "is not 
to start a riot or to attempt to take it by force, for, 
if you do, the police will pounce upon you and club 
you into submission, or the troops will be called out, 
you will be shot down like so many rats, and they 



59 



will probably hang inc. Now that's not the way. 
The way to do it is to elect the Socialist candid 

to office, and take by law the property which belo 
by right to you! [Applause.] He went on, and 
said, "This sounds revolutionary," just as our friend 
Carey did. " But did Abraham Lincoln hesitate to 
sign the Emancipation Proclamation? Did he not 
take property by the stroke of the pen? Will any 
one deny that this was not a legitimate confiscation 
of property? Now, all you need to do to get your 
property is to vote the Socialist ticket, and we will 
do the same thing!" [Applause from Socialists.] 

Here was a plausible plan, a definite statement of 
just how Socialism was to be put into operation; in 
other words, lawful confiscation of private property, 
robbery by the ballot! After showing how easily this 
could be done without violence, without disorder, 
he answered his own next question, "Why don't you 
vote the Socialist ticket?'' by saying, u l will tell you 
why, because down deep in your hearts there is the 
lingering hope that some clay you will have some 
of these wage slaves working for YOU!" [Socialists 
applaud.] "But, when the time comes that all hope 
is gone of having wage slaves under your domina- 
tion, then you will become Socialists!" [Applause.] 
In other words, when man acknowledges to himself that 
he is a failure, when hope is dead when despair sets 
in, then socialism holds out its hands and cries. u Ac- 
cept our creed, the creed of despair! 73 [Great applause.] 

But this speaker failed to point out that the email- 



60 



cipation of the black slave, just as it was, involved 
our nation in Civil War, at a cost of blood and 
treasure unequalled in modern times. 

Do you, as Socialists, for one moment believe that 
the unjust taking or confiscating of property, by the 
simple act of a stroke of the pen, will be accepted 
peaceably by the individuals who now own property ? 
[Applause from Anti-Socialist side.] If you do, un- 
deceive yourselves. You may build your air castles, 
go into emotional ecstasies over visionary ideals, 
dream Utopian dreams to your heart's content, but 
remember that when you attempt to actually take 
property by the process of collective robbery, indi- 
vidualism will rise in self-defence, and, if need be, 
crush you! [Applause and laughter.] Individual 
freedom and the private ownership of property will not 
be superseded by slavery and the collective ownership 
of property without a struggle. Civilization may 
tremble in the balance, the struggle may be intense, 
but the oak of individualism is too deeply rooted in 
the soil of freedom to be destroyed by all the collec- 
tive underbrush in the forest of humanity. [Great 
applause.] 

Mr. George W. Coleman, Chairman. — The meet- 
ing is dismissed. 

[Voice from right of hall, "Three cheers for Mr. 
Carey."] Cheers given. [Voice from left, "Three 
cheers for Mr. Hugo."] Given. 



DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE EM- 
PLOYERS' ASSOCIATION OF MASSACHU- 
SETTS. 

Organized for Law axd Order and Industrial 

Peace. 

u The Laws Aid the Vigilant, not the Negligent" 

1. Xo closed shop. 

2. Xo restriction as to the use of tools, machinery, 

or materials, except such as are unsafe. 

3. Xo limitation of output. 

4. Xo restriction as to the number of apprentices 

and helpers, when of proper age. 

5. Xo boycott. 

6. Xo sympathetic strike. 

7. Xo sacrifice of the independent workman to 

the Labor Union. 

8. Xo compulsory use of the union label. 

" The combined moral and financial resources of 
this Association will be given to safeguard these prin- 
ciples.'' — George B. Hugo, President. 

" I find every one of these principles to be in de- 
fence of private and public liberty." — Charles W. 
Eliot, President of Harvard University. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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